I tend to agree. Look at Apple Computer. All of their products are designed in California, but not made there! Honestly i could care less where the car is made, as long as Saab continues to make SOME cars in sweden and makes the rest other places. As long as SAAB continues to design their own cars from the ground up, then I am cool with it. Quality of each vehicle has to be exactly what Saab wants, not what they just can get. Again look at Apple, their laptops are much better made than everyone else's laptops in terms of fit and finish. Factories in china that pump out everyone elses plastic laptops are pumping out Apple's beautiful aluminum ones.. the quality is there. So for me I am more concerned about quality then anything else. In the end arent we all? We got quality cars out of Sweden, so naturally we don't want our cars coming out of Opel plants and Daewoo plants. Unless the quality doesn't matches that of our sweden cars, then who cares.
So again, for a SAAB to be a real SAAB, it needs three things:
- Designed by SAAB. The new design center will take care of this.
- Built from the ground up by SAAB. Now, I know that the new 9-3, the ng900, and the old 9000.. heck every car wasn't built entirely by SAAB.. they really never built a car all by themself, but thats OK. They chose partners and platforms they wanted. Saab didn't want an Impreza or a Trailblazer, I assure you. As long as Saab builds off of what they chose and they want, then its built from the ground up by saab. check.
- Quality at par with the SAAB image. Saab is a luxury brand. Not exactly top tier but on the same level as Volvo and Audi, or at least it used to be
. The point is, the fit and finish of the vehicles needs to be at that level. The plastic controls, the dashes, the type of leather seats, every tiny detail needs to be up there in quality.
In my opinion, the 9-2x failed all 3 tests, the 9-7x failed all 3 tests (almost passsed the 3rd), the 9-3SS passes but gets a midgrade with quality, and the current 9-5 passes all of these. I expect the new sportcombi to pass everything with slightly better grades then the 9-3SS.
So this is my own grading system on how to tell if a SAAB is really a SAAB
